Kain could tell that some of his spiritual power that was supposed to be used to form the third star was being sucked to a fourth location. Therefore, the already great resistance he felt while forming the star was now double what it should be.
However, gathering all of the spiritual power, now a reddish-orange leaning more heavily towards orange, to form a stable star was necessary to advance.
Kain tried to form the star closer toward the opposing force, but it seemed as though it was persistent in maintaining an equal distance from all of Kain’s current and future stars.
Therefore, Kain could only continue through the extremely stressful situation.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Kain managed to loosely gather all of his spiritual power to one location that he could then begin trying to form into his third star.
However, within the expanse of the area of the space now devoid of spiritual power, Kain saw a faint flicker.
‘What is that? Am I just so tired from all of this stress that I’m seeing things?’
He decided to ignore it for now and focus on the more important task at hand.
Time continued to go on and on for what felt like an eternity. However, what was even more burdensome than controlling the spiritual power against an opposing force, was the mental anguish at not knowing how much time had passed or how much longer it’d take before this dreadful process was over.
To avoid going mad with boredom, Kain would also divert some of his attention when he took a break to the flicker of light in the distance, which was continuously increasing and decreasing in size.
He eventually figured out that when he was on the correct path of forming a stable star, and there was less escaping spiritual power from the region he collected it into, the light would grow larger. However, he wasn’t able to get it just right.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Kain was able to get a form he thought was stable. However, when the light in the distance reached its greatest size yet, the gravitation pull destabilized all of his hard work, and the extremely compressed spiritual power started to fluctuate as though a severe explosion was imminent.
It took all of his concentration to get it under control and prevent a disastrous outcome.
However, he was still left with the upsetting realization that once he was close to accomplishing his task an external force would interfere in the star’s formation.
‘What the hell is going on?!’
Kain felt a wave of frustration wash over him, but he quickly pushed it aside. He couldn’t afford to let anger or despair cloud his judgment now. He needed clarity.
He was exhausted and stopped trying to condense the star into a stable form. Instead, he just kept all of the spiritual power loosely gathered into a certain area. However, despite no longer trying to condense the star, Kain noticed that the flickering lights, while much dimmer than when condensing the star, were still in existence.
Kain decided to change his plan. The third star wasn’t meant to be forced into existence amidst this chaos; it needed to wait until after the completion of whatever that light was first. The creation of the star could come afterward, once there was no longer such a strong interfering force present.
Kain focused on maintaining the absence of spiritual power from where the light was instead of on condensing it. It took slightly less energy, and being able to focus on the single task ensured that less spiritual power accidentally escaped from where he’d collected it.
Finally, the light began to grow and stabilize into a coherent circular shape. He could feel the tension easing and the gravitational pull no longer felt hostile. Rather, Kain felt a warm connection to whatever was about to emerge.
Once the light completely faded, Kain could see the identity of whatever was forming. It looked like a beautiful small mostly blue marble full of green and white swirls.
‘Earth?’
Kain examined it even more closely and couldn’t disregard the striking resemblance it had with his original Earth. However, rather than the many separate continents he was familiar with, it more closely resembled the Ancient Earth with only one Pangea supercontinent.
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‘Perhaps…is this related to my gift? Is that what the name Traveller’s Souvenir meant? Is this like a souvenir from Earth? Like a little souvenir model of Earth instead of a model of the Eiffel Tower?’ Kain had been puzzling over what the name given to his gift by the System could possibly mean, but he hadn’t expected for the elusive gift to make an appearance at this point in time.
However, now wasn’t the time to examine it further, he was in the middle of a breakthrough.
Fortunately, perhaps the previous resistance had a tempering effect, but Kain found it extremely easy to form his third star.
Now, his space had 3 stars with orange-grade spiritual power, and an object that resembles Earth, that absolutely no spiritual power could be sensed from.
Exhausted, but still curious about the strange new addition, Kain didn’t immediately exit the star space, and instead examined the strange planet. However, no matter how much he tried, he could not figure what its purpose was. Or if it’d be a good or bad thing for him.
Unable to obtain any more information, Kain’s consciousness returned to his bedroom and he immediately collapsed on the bed in exhaustion.
He had no idea how long he’d been in the space, but judging by how starved he felt, and the smell of his body, he was willing to guess that several days had passed.
Beast-tamers can go progressively longer without food and water with each star they condense. So for him to be so starved, it must have been several days. The date on the phone next to his bed also confirmed that 4 days had passed.
He quickly just grabbed a filling but tasteless ration from his space ring, and fell asleep without even bothering to shower.